Jul 22
Christian Comments: This is truly the fantasy of every elementary school boy. Knight in shining armour with laser gun and sword while riding a dinosaur with a mohawk and ankle spikes. Epic.
Published 2002
Christian Comments: This is truly the fantasy of every elementary school boy. Knight in shining armour with laser gun and sword while riding a dinosaur with a mohawk and ankle spikes. Epic.
Published 2002
July 22nd, 2013 at 11:13 am
“OK… just got our balance… now try walking forward…”
Oh, and John Ringo were fine, but Paul George were better. If you had to pick favourites.
July 22nd, 2013 at 12:04 pm
Hope is crotch is armored. Seated at the particular angle, and considering the likely motion of his steed, his groin is going to take a beating.
July 22nd, 2013 at 1:52 pm
The mohawk is fabulous. But the raccoon eye-shadow is to die for!
Is this a one-legged dinosaur with a tail firmly anchored in a rock?
Do we have dueling authors here? Is this titled David Weber March to the Sea by John Ringo?
July 22nd, 2013 at 2:41 pm
@THX; George Ringo all the way! Meanwhile, what a heroic pose on that dino!
July 22nd, 2013 at 2:42 pm
Baen Director: “Ankle bracelets on a dinosaur? You wouldn’t dare!”
Baen Cover Artist: “Oh I would, oh I would!!” (Giggles like a school girl)
Baen Director: “Matching eye shadow on Bret Michaels and the Veloca-T-Rex?? You would not dare!!”
Baen Cover Artist: “Oh I would and I did!!” (Giggles manically)
Baen Director: (wipes happy tears from eye) “Another glorious day at BAEN BOOKS!”
(Both men stand up and kiss their Baen shirt logos while humming the Baen theme song)
July 22nd, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Say what you will, but Julian Assange does look fetching astride a faux-rex with a laser-gun and a katana and armour and a cape and is that the butt of a rifle I see sticking out behind his back? Leave nothing to chance!
July 22nd, 2013 at 3:31 pm
Eye shadow? I saw it as a Lone Ranger-style eye mask. Either way, Good Show Sir!
July 22nd, 2013 at 3:53 pm
The bit is fit for a dinosaur but the reins look like they would break off with a small tug.
Stallion? Gelding? Mare? Pony? Donkey?
July 22nd, 2013 at 5:13 pm
John Ringo knows how to give the people what they want.
What do the people want? David Bowie on a velociraptor, that’s what.
July 22nd, 2013 at 8:21 pm
IMPOSTOR! That’s no dinosaur, dinosaurs didn’t have enlarged 3rd maxillary teeth. OR forward facing nostrils. OR cheeks. And meat-eating dinosaurs had their first toes rotated, like a bird’s. And they held their backs parallel to the ground, like a bird’s. And they couldn’t rotate their palms downward, their hands were restricted to one plane of motion. And the ends of their tails were stiff.
AND THEY ALL HAD BLOODY LASER SUPER SOAKERS!
July 23rd, 2013 at 1:46 am
The extraordinary John Ringo – not the chap from the Gunfight at the OK Corrall but this guy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/JohnRingo?from=Main.JohnRingo
http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html
Thank you, Baen Books, thank you so hard.
July 23rd, 2013 at 11:07 am
@Dead Stuff. Never mind, the beast is no doubt meant to be a dragon.
July 23rd, 2013 at 11:51 am
I’m sorry, this is not a schoolboy’s fantasy. It’s missing the scantily-clad woman with a clumsily-drawn bust, and “[name of probably crappy band] RULEZ!” in giant letters.
July 24th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
@Rags 5—not to mention the red bra. No wonder he’s sucking in his tummy; he’s trying to impress her. It’s another boy-meets-girl-dragon/T-Rex-hybrid sci-fi thriller/love story, a Baen speciality!
July 25th, 2013 at 2:33 am
The logical extension of Dino-riders…
I really like this cover. (Go 80’s!) My only question (well, not ONLY, but my most major question) is: why is someone “marching to the sea” on a dinosaur? I’m pretty sure even pseudo-T-rexes can’t really march. And what’s to do at the sea? Unless there is something about General Sherman and the Civil War I don’t know about…
July 25th, 2013 at 3:53 pm
@B. Chiclitz — to me what the dino’s wearing looks less like a red bra and more like a Roman tunic-vest, except teeny-tiny like those outfits you can buy for your pet. I think this is all some big owner-and-pet cosplay session.
July 26th, 2013 at 4:44 am
@Scott B—yes, that is a better read I agree. Perhaps on their way to the Cosmic Comicon in L.A. (hence the march toward the sea). Might win a prize!
July 29th, 2013 at 9:03 pm
Actually, the illustration is accurate to the story, if anyone commenting here READS…
July 30th, 2013 at 2:46 pm
…because of course nobody who READS could possibly have failed to read this particular book…
July 30th, 2013 at 4:10 pm
@Amused 18—well, we read your post, didn’t we? And it was indeed amusing, so you’ve picked a good nom de plume and all. But you’ve sort of missed the point, amusingly.
July 31st, 2013 at 5:22 am
@B. Chiclitz. Well, at least Amused has settled the question of whether the book really is about people who wear mediaeval-style costumes, wield laser-rifles and katanas and ride around on dinosaurs. So many of these covers LIE to us!
May 13th, 2014 at 1:48 pm
I think the real problem here is that the ridiculous cover illustration is accurate to the story. Neither the cover, nor the story are helped by the other.
May 15th, 2014 at 1:30 pm
Only a few tickets left to the
DAVID WEBER MARCH TO THE SEA
Join our effort to toss David Weber into the sea
Call now!
December 14th, 2015 at 9:45 pm
Curiously, this same image can be found on the back flap where the author’s cover photo is supposed to appear.
December 15th, 2015 at 11:57 am
At least there aren’t any back flaps depicted on the cover.
August 6th, 2017 at 5:04 am
A man with a mullet, weilding a rifle and a sword rides a dinosaur sporting a Mohawk, a bikini, and ankle bracelets? Good show, Sir!
June 12th, 2019 at 4:37 pm
Weirdly, I totally want to read this.
June 13th, 2019 at 5:54 am
Fascinatingly, I just wrote a letter to an old friend saying I was feeling nostalgic tonight, and then I reread these old posts again and lo, my sides did split. What a great thread. Rachel J I hope you are still around. Dead Stuff, we mourn your absence. GSS!
March 12th, 2022 at 4:03 pm
Jon Favreau saw this and just had to get Boba Fett on the rancor.
March 12th, 2022 at 11:35 pm
@fred: Boba looked a lot less stupid and not so try-hard, though. And he had Danny Trejo teaching him, so there was actual macho manliness, not pretend.
I’ve just looked at this again and had to vote it up.
Maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Maybe it’s not actually a chap marching to the sea on a mohawked T rex-ish thingy.
Maybe it’s a setup in some mall photo studio where teen boys can come (with their mullet or a wig thereof), put on the armor and all the weapons they can carry, and pose on some plastic mohawked dino-esque thingy.
This would explain its non-actual-dinosaurness (I miss DSWBT too), the ludicrous reins, the unbalanced pose of the critter and everything.
“Mooooommmm! I NEED my yearbook photo taken at the mall studio, with the dinosaur! It’ll be SO RAD!”
Because, despite this book being published in 2002, the ambiance is completely 80s, in which it would have been RAD.
By the 90s, he’s in college and listening to Nirvana and has destroyed all copies of this picture.
March 13th, 2022 at 2:19 am
@GSS ex-noob: some authors just can’t move on from the 1980s.
March 13th, 2022 at 5:03 am
@Bruce: or the 1950s, some of them.
March 13th, 2022 at 6:45 am
If you listen closely, you can hear the dino-faux singing softly to rider boy—
🎶 Yes, your feet’s too big
Don’t want you ’cause you feet’s too big
Can’t use you ’cause you feet’s too big
I really hate you ’cause your feet’s too big 🎶